November 24th COVID-19 Update

November 24, 2020

I hope that you and your loved ones are doing well, staying healthy, and looking out for your neighbors and friends in these difficult times.

COVID case numbers have again declined somewhat today.  We may be starting to stabilize at the 1000 level, which is still extremely high (but better than the record numbers of last week).  We’re already seeing the consequences of the surge in our increasingly high rates of hospitalization and in today’s reported number of deaths—a new record of 21.  Again, we’re seeing most of the new infections hitting the young, but the virus is then being spready to older friends, family members, co-workers, and others, with severe consequences resulting.

The purpose of the current freeze is to change that trajectory. 

We just received a group letter from Oregon’s health care community (Oregon Medical Association, Oregon Nurses Association, and the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems) with the following message:

If Oregon’s case numbers do not slow and reverse, we will struggle to provide the best possible care for you and those you love, and not just for COVID-19. Limited resources and staff will affect our ability to provide chemotherapy for cancer treatment, emergency surgery for a heart attack or severe infection, or possibly even a safe place to deliver a baby.

Oregon’s nurses, physicians, physician assistants, and hospitals need your help in order to do our jobs well. As we head into a new year and conceive of the potential for a better 2021, we urge responsible celebration this holiday season to prevent death and hospitalization.

As you’ll see below, late this afternoon a district judge rejected a challenge to the Governor’s “freeze” order, arguing that it is a rational response to this current emergency.

The freeze, however, is just that—a temporary set of restrictions.  The Governor and her medical advisors have been working on a longer-term set of policies, which we expect to hear more about tomorrow.  Legislators received a preliminary briefing on them today, but they’re not yet finalized.  The Governor is expected to provide more details in a press conference tomorrow.  As she has tried to do so far, she will be taking a regional approach to fighting the disease, with different strategies for counties, depending on whether transmission is increasing, declining, or holding steady.  I should be able to share details tomorrow.

Please stay safe, and let me know if you have any questions about today’s newsletter. 

TODAY’S CORONAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE UPDATE

• Positive Cases: OHA reports today that 952 additional Oregonians have tested positive for COVID-19. The cumulative total for those testing positive since the beginning of the pandemic is 64,124.
• Total Tests: The number of reported COVID test results has increased by 8,252. The cumulative total of tests since the beginning of the pandemic is now 1,021,373.
• Ratio: The percentage of total tests that have been reported positive over the last three days is 11.5%.  The national ratio today is 9.3%.
• Deaths: I’m sorry to have to report 21 additional COVID deaths today. You can read about the Oregonians we lost further down in the newsletter. The total number of COVID deaths in Oregon is now 847.
• Hospitalized: OHA reports 56 new COVID hospitalizations. The cumulative number of those who have been hospitalized with COVID is now 4,176.
• Presumptive Cases: OHA is including “presumptive COVID-19 cases” in its daily reports, consistent with recently amended guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A presumptive case is someone who does not yet have a positive PCR test but is showing symptoms and has had close contact with a confirmed case. If they later test positive by PCR, those will be recategorized as confirmed cases.  OHA reports 59 new presumed positives today.  The total number of presumed positives has been 3,209.
• Other Hospital Information:
  • Patients Currently with COVID-19 Symptoms (who may or may not have received a positive test result yet): 534 (42 more than yesterday). Of those, 474 have already received a positive test back.
  • Available ICU Beds: 154 (21 fewer than yesterday)
  • Other Available Beds: 679 (60 fewer than yesterday).
  • ICU Patients w COVID-19 Symptoms: 116 (3 fewer than yesterday).
  • COVID-19 Patients Currently on Ventilators: 45 (4 more than yesterday).
  • Available Ventilators: 733 (4 more than yesterday).
• Dashboards:
  • Oregon (OHA)
  • Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, & Yamhill Counties
• Today’s National Numbers:
  • Total Tests: 182,928,236 (up 1,785,707 from yesterday).
  • Total Cases: 12,397,144 (up 166,219 yesterday.)
  • Deaths: 250,925 (up 2,028 from yesterday).
  • These national numbers come from the COVID Tracking Project. You can follow their updated numbers for each state and the nation as a whole here.

• Additional Brief Updates:
  • OHA has released the latest report on County Metrics for school reopening.  I’ve just been told that the positivity rate in this latest report reflects the new test reporting methodology that expands the number of tests reported (and thereby lowers the reported positivity rate).  That new methodology will also be included in the next Weekly Report, due tomorrow.
  • I mentioned yesterday that hospitals are being challenged by the number of staff who cannot work because of COVID (either they themselves have it or someone with whom they’ve had close contact does). That helps explain the dynamic nature of the reported bed counts.  ICU beds may not be available because they’re occupied by patients or they may not be available because the number of available staff has declined.  Both are taken into consideration in the daily numbers reported above and in the graphs that show % of available beds below.
  • Many Oregonians are frustrated that we don’t seem to have as much ready access to testing as our friends and family in other states do. Many, for example, would like to have the added security of a negative test result before visiting their family for Thanksgiving. But there is growing evidence that this will only provide a false sense of security that could actually be dangerous. Here is a recent article from Vox that goes into some detail on this concern.  OPB’s Erin Ross has an article dealing with the same problem.
  • While hospitals are concerned about the declining number of staffed beds, they also want to be clear that people with serious health problems should not put off a visit to the ER. And if you’re worried that the ER may not be safe, a recent study reported on by OPB’s Amelia Templeton shows no instances of COVID infections due to ER visits in a number of states, one of which is our own.
  • As I’ve mentioned before, the high amount of community spread in the Metro area is making it very difficult for effective contact tracing to be effective. As a result, public health officers are urging Portland area residents who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 to reach out “right away” to anyone they’ve been in close contact with, including employers, and encourage them to take steps to quarantine or isolate, You can read more in this Oregonian story from Andrew Theen.
  • In late-breaking news, Federal District Court Judge Karin Immergut has just denied the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association’s petition for an injunction against Governor Brown’s current “freeze” order limiting restaurants to takeout-only for the duration of the freeze.  The judge found that the Governor’s order was a rational response to the current emergency.  You can read the ruling here.

Where Are Today’s New Cases?

If we put together the positive test results and new “presumptive” cases reported today, the overall number of new cases for today is 1,011.  Here is the breakdown by county for today:

Baker (7)

Benton (20)

Clackamas (106)

Clatsop (7)

Columbia (7)

Coos (4)

Crook (3)

Curry (7)

Deschutes (44)

Douglas (19)

Grant (4)

Harney (2)

Hood River (6)

Jackson (56)

Jefferson (12)

Josephine (11)

Klamath (16)

Lake (9)

Lane (57)

Lincoln (23)

Linn (21)

Malheur (17)

Marion (113)

Morrow (5)

Multnomah (150)

Polk (30)

Tillamook (1)

Umatilla (34)

Union (4)

Wasco (9)

Washington (183)

Yamhill (24)

And the Deaths

Oregon’s 827th COVID-19 death is a 74-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Nov. 15 and died on Nov. 19, at Tuality Community Hospital.

Oregon’s 828th COVID-19 death is a 94-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Oct. 22 and died on Nov. 1, in his residence.

Oregon’s 829th COVID-19 death is a 68-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Oct. 29 and died on Nov. 18, in her residence.

Oregon’s 830th COVID-19 death is an 81-year-old man in Multnomah County who died on Nov. 15, in his residence. The death certificate listed COVID-19 disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.

Oregon’s 831st COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 9 and died on Nov. 15, in her residence.

Oregon’s 832nd COVID-19 death is a 93-year-old woman in Washington County who tested positive on Nov. 9 and died on Nov. 10, at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center.

Oregon’s 833rd COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old woman in Wallowa County who tested positive on Oct. 26 and died on Nov. 9, at Wallowa Memorial Hospital.

Oregon’s 834th COVID-19 death is an 81-year-old man in Douglas County who tested positive on Nov. 6 and died on Nov. 22, at Mercy Medical Center.

Oregon’s 835th COVID-19 death is a 75-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 10 and died on Nov. 17.

Oregon’s 836th COVID-19 death is a 92-year-old woman in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 3 and died on Nov. 11, in her residence.

Oregon’s 837th COVID-19 death is a 91-year-old woman in Douglas County who tested positive on Nov. 16 and died on Nov. 20, at Mercy Medical Center.

Oregon’s 838th COVID-19 death is an 81-year-old man in Linn County who tested positive on Oct. 26 and died on Nov. 18, at Portland Veteran’s Administration Medical Center.

Oregon’s 839th COVID-19 death is an 82-year-old man in Jackson County who tested positive on Nov. 6 and died on Nov. 21, at Rogue Valley Medical Center.

Oregon’s 840th COVID-19 death is a 72-year-old woman in Jackson County who tested positive on Oct. 26 and died on Nov. 21, at Rogue Valley Medical Center.

Oregon’s 841st COVID-19 death is an 89-year-old man in Union County who tested positive on Nov. 11 and died on Nov. 23.

Oregon’s 842nd COVID-19 death is a 94-year-old man in Clackamas County who tested positive on Oct. 29 and died on Nov. 7, in his residence.

Oregon’s 843rd COVID-19 death is a 74-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on June 24 and died on Nov. 4, in his residence.

Oregon’s 844th COVID-19 death is a 91-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 15 and died on Nov. 20, in his residence.

Oregon’s 845th COVID-19 death is a 58-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Nov. 4 and died on Nov. 14, in his residence.

Oregon’s 846th COVID-19 death is a 72-year-old man in Multnomah County who tested positive on Oct. 24 and died on Oct. 25, at Portland Adventist Medical Center.

Oregon’s 847th COVID-19 death is a 33-year-old man in Marion County who died on Nov. 12, at Kaiser Westside Medical Center.

Additional Graphs:

**You can find a breakdown of regional availability here.

Want to See Past Newsletters?

If there was COVID-related information in a past newsletter that you want to go back to, but find you’ve deleted it, you can always go to my legislative website (senatordembrow.com), click on “News and Information,” and you’ll find them all there.  Also, if someone forwarded you this newsletter and you’d like to get it directly, you can sign up for it there.

AND FINALLY,

Here again are some resources that you will find useful:

• Multnomah County has a status report on reopening.
• You can view the reopening status of all 36 counties here.
• Here is the OHA’s coronavirus page, with links to a number of resources. 
• Oregon's Office of Emergency Management now has a website for information about COVID-19.
• You can sign up here for regular coronavirus updates from OHA.
• Multnomah County has an excellent website with lots of really important advice and guidance.
• Here’s one from the Governor’s Office.
• The Employment Department has put together a webpage with Q&A’s on a number of employment issues related to COVID-19 (e.g., eligibility for Unemployment Insurance benefits).
• The Oregon Education Department has a new site for COVID-19 updates.
• The Department of Corrections has a COVID tracking website.

If the above links are not providing you with answers to your questions or directing you to the help that you need, please consider me and my office to be a resource.  We’ll do our best to assist you or steer you in the right direction. 

Best,

Senator Michael Dembrow
District 23

email: Sen.MichaelDembrow@oregonlegislature.gov
web: www.senatordembrow.com
phone: 503-986-1723
mail: 900 Court St NE, S-407, Salem, OR, 97301